Angelic Deals (Realms Unleashed: Red Angel Book 2) Page 6

  As A turned and went low to do his own tackling, I took out my butter knife, flipped it, and, holding it by the dull blade, brought the heavy handle down hard against his head. Clobbering little demon vermin to temporary death? Over-reaction and unnecessary. Bludgeoning a part-demon into unconsciousness? Absolutely not a problem.

  He grunted in pain, momentarily dazed. I hit him again. And a third time. He stepped back, shaking his head, then gave me a venomous look that promised retribution and ran away down one of the corridors.

  The second he disappeared from view, I rounded on Zel, ready to scream bloody murder at him for not helping. Instead, I caught his disappointed expression and decided that actions spoke louder than words.

  I threw the butter knife at his head.

  It didn’t hit the mark, of course, but it sure felt good. He caught it deftly, and his eyes flashed a bright red.

  “Half-angel,” he purred in my head. I winced but refused to stop glowering at him. He closed the distance between us in a few slow, long strides and towered over me. With a slight smile, he touched the end of the butter knife’s handle to my nose. “You’ll have to do better than that to banish me.”

  Oh, reaaaally?

  About an hour later, I sat alone at one of the tables outside the Hunters’ headquarters, Zel nowhere in sight. It had been worth paying his bus fare just to witness the scrunching of his nose and immediate disappearance into Air as soon as the alley leading into the plaza outside the building had come into view.

  A slight cackle escaped me. Zel, not so comfortable when presented with a gaggle of Hunters. Something about the way they smelled, apparently.

  Now that I was momentarily free of the angel, I’d return to the black market later at night, I decided. I’d ask around some more about Cabot and this Bree person. Maybe talk to Aszu, after all—leave no stone unturned, and all that. If I got lucky, Nash would be awake, too.

  Having guessed that if the nearness of headquarters didn’t make Zel disappear, the inside would, I’d texted Sol to meet me here as soon as we’d left the Market.

  I waved at the man behind the counter inside headquarters’ foyer to get some blood going in my frozen veins. He showed me his middle finger.

  Guess some Hunters still held grudges, un-blacklisting or not.

  Someone had put up a small Christmas tree on top of the counter, and that was the only hint in the building that the holiday season was slowly looming closer. I wondered where Davis had stashed the box of cheap garlands we’d used last year. I’d have to get Tara to ask for me, or the box would end up wherever my bike lived now, if only out of spite.

  Feeling nostalgic, I sent Cooper a text. Another in a long chain of one-sided correspondence in the last few days. I sighed, feeling the corners of my mouth dip unhappily. He had barely acknowledged one of every ten messages, and I hoped busting me out of Hunter jail hadn’t landed him in too much trouble. He owned the headquarters building, so I knew he wouldn’t be actually punished but…

  Nah, I reassured myself. I was the one being punished by his lack of conversation. He was teaching me a lesson in case the horror of being locked in an underground cell hadn’t driven the point home—stay in your lane and don’t mess with the Hunters.

  I wouldn’t have to, I wanted to type in the conversation, if they weren’t so obstinate and actually listened.

  With another sigh, I closed the conversation and returned to my game.

  It took Sol another forty-five minutes to make her way here. She was dressed in jeans and a winter jacket that buttoned up to her chin. Her long, black hair was gathered in a bun at the back of her head. As usual, her feet were encased in sandals and what were probably three layers of socks.

  I’d often pointed out that with that many socks she might as well wear sneakers or light ankle books, but she was adamant it wouldn’t be the same.

  Sol enjoyed easy access to the ground—it was what allowed her to use her power to trap demons into immobility. It also heightened her awareness of any non-human being in the vicinity, angels included.

  Hunters had tried to recruit her, but Sol wasn’t made to be a Hunter, even if her brother was their second in command. In truth, Sol wasn’t sure of what she was made to be, but working at her mother’s shop scratched the itch for now.

  She smiled when she saw me and rushed to give me a hug.

  “Brrr,” she said. “You’re cold.”

  “Yup.”

  She sat by my side and huddled close. “Why are we meeting here instead of your place?”

  “This is the only place I know Zel won’t listen in.”

  She made a face. “Do you think he’s going to stick around again?”

  “Probably for a bit. Until he gets bored.”

  “I don’t know.” She nudged my side. “I think he might like you.”

  The horrified expression on my face made her laugh. The problem was, the horror was due to the sudden memory of Zel’s lips pressed against mine her comment had evoked, and the tingling in my belly that accompanied it. The tiny, tiny voice that said, ooh, more!

  No. No way Zel liked me. He was just poking around, getting his dose of entertainment out of my reactions. But it had felt…good knowing he’d been outside my room when I’d gone to sleep after my fight with Malthuk and Alaciel. And it had been somewhat disappointing to realize he no longer was there when I’d woken up.

  Which meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. Plus, he’d stayed away until the photo had surfaced. If he’d actually been interested in me, he would’ve come around before that, right?

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Sol said with another burst of laughter. “I was kidding. We’re too lowly for angels except maybe as pets.”

  “Great. Because that's much better.” I tried to push all thoughts of Zel, lips, and feelings out of my mind. I did not want them, and I did not need them.

  “Okay, okay.” she said, patting my arm. “What does he want this time, anyway?”

  I tugged the beanie lower over my ears. “He wants me to find the Red Angel.” Guilt filled my gut as I studied her expression. How I wished I could tell her the truth! But I couldn’t. It would put her in danger. What if she let a hint escape by mistake, and someone decided to get the truth out of her by any means necessary?

  She met my gaze. “Are you going to?”

  I huffed a laugh that I hoped didn’t sound too fake. “If the undernet can’t find her, how can I?”

  “I don’t know. I think you might have a knack for finding things. You found the Vow, didn’t you?”

  “Meh, pure coincidence.”

  “I really think us going into the investigation business would work great. Your contacts in the black market with my contacts in the outside world. Perfect combination.”

  I had to admit the idea didn’t seem as outlandish as when she had first suggested it. If I could find Cabot, I could find anything—the sky was the limit. And if people were willing to pay as generously as Gabriel? Then we were talking. A bedroom with its own bathroom might even be in the cards, not to mention my bike.

  “Was that what you wanted to ask?” Sol asked. “You want me to look into her? By the way, Ramón hasn’t done anything to my phone. I’ve checked a dozen times.”

  “Says you,” I muttered.

  She smacked my arm playfully. “Trust me. Now, tell me. What do you need help with?”

  I told her about Gabriel’s visit and watched her shocked reaction.

  “The Gabriel?” she asked, awed.

  I nodded.

  “And he wants you to figure out how to free Iriel?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you going to do it?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “But, Ana, you’re the reason Malthuk got free. You’re not going to…” It was her turn for her expression to fill with horror. “No, Ana! It’s too dangerous. A favor isn’t worth that! Not even from Gabriel.”

  I couldn’t well tell her it would be worth it if Gabriel could help me free the souls stuck in my wings for all eternity, since she didn’t even know I was the Red Angel. “Hopefully, it won’t get to that. If I can just find Cabot or find a way to lure him somewhere, I might be able to have Gabriel take care of it without my involvement. Besides,” I added with a bit of wince, “how do you say no to an angel?”

  She grimaced. “Good point. What have you done so far?”

  “I went to the black market and asked around about Cabot, but nobody seems to know much. I couldn’t go in too deep because of Zel, but I’m hoping to go back tonight and try to get better answers.” My spirits perked up a little. “And I might get good information out of this one guy I found unconscious and took to the Archivist.”

  “Ana! Not another kidnapping?”

  “Nah, it wasn’t like with Cole.” Mostly. “I took him to safety so whoever tried to kill him didn’t try again.”

  “Has it occurred to you that whoever tried to kill him might try to kill you for getting in the way?” Sol asked dryly.

  “Uhh…”

  “You shouldn’t go back there. Not alone.”

  “I’ll be okay at night. It gets pretty crowded—no one will try anything if I stick to the crowds.”

  Sol bit her lip. “I’ll go with you.”

  I nudged her with my elbow. “You can’t, silly. If someone recognizes you and Ramón finds out, you’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Do you think you can look around, see if you can find anything about Cabot?”

  She nodded, still somewhat dejected at being unable to come with me to the black market. “Want me to search in there, too?” She indicated headquarters with a slight tilt of her head.

  “I’ll get Cole on that.”

  “He can finally be useful,” she said with a grin.

  One could only hope. “I figure between us, Cole, and the black market, we should be able to unearth something about Cabot. Where he lives, or what he wants.”

  “And if we can’t?”

  “A worry for another day.”

  “Sounds about right. Regroup tomorrow?”

  I agreed, and we sat in silence for a few minutes, both of us unwilling to leave each other’s company. Ever since I was made persona non grata and had to get creative with my job choices, moments like this had only grown scarcer.

  “Have you had any dreams lately?” I asked.

  She sent me a furtive glance, then focused on the weathered surface of the table. “One or two.”

  “That many?” I asked in shock. Her dreams used to come once every few weeks, if not months.

  She lifted a shoulder. “It’s not too bad.”

  “Should I ask the angels about the dreams? I doubt they’ll connect you to them, and they’d have nothing to gain by spreading the rumors.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No. I can deal with it.”

  But could she deal with the figure that had recently come to stalk her in them?

  She must’ve guessed where my trail of thought went because she patted my arm and gave me a warm smile as she stood. “It’s okay, really. Don’t worry about it. Let’s get you out of this mess first, okay?”

  “It’s not a mess, it’s an opportunity,” I declared proudly, following her toward the alleyway into the main street.

  “Hah. Keep telling yourself that.”

  I stuck out my tongue.

  We chitchatted about random things as we went to the parking space the Hunters rented in a nearby building, and as she drove me home in her mom’s Civic.

  My plans consisted of grabbing a bite and taking a nap before tonight’s adventures, but I had to make a couple of stops first.

  Stopping outside Davis’s office, I knocked on the door with some trepidation.

  “What?” came the surly answer.

  I opened the door, peeked inside, and attempted to suffuse my voice with all the sunshine in the world. “Hi, Davis!”

  He glanced up from his desk, his frown deepening. “Holt. What do you want? A surgeon this time? A funeral home recommendation?”

  I toyed with the knob. “Could you get me in contact with Too Good?”

  I’d found Too Good the same night my carefully constructed life built around hiding my identity as the Red Angel had come crashing down. A summoner of about twelve, the kid had turned out to be a surprising source of summoner information. In exchange for his help, Davis had promised to keep him safe and hidden from the Hunters.

  “No.”

  “I just need to ask him a couple of questions. Text or email would be fine.”

  “No.”

  All right, then. “What about my bike? Could I have it back? I’d be able to pay rent much faster if I didn’t have to spend money on public transport.”

  Davis burst out laughing. “Good try. But now that you remind me…” He searched through a drawer and produced a small package with a post-it attached to it. “Can you deliver this next time you go down to the black market? You frequent the place so much, you might as well.” He snorted at the narrowing of my eyes. “Yes, I know you went there. You took an angel with you, for God’s sake. What, you think people wouldn’t talk about it?”

  So much for being incognito. Package in hand, I made my way to Tara’s floor with a definite sad turn to my steps.

  I got lucky—she answered the door right away and didn’t seem put out.

  “Hey. What’s up?”

  Tara wasn’t a fan of wasting time, so I cut to the chase. “Can you get me in touch with Aszu?”

  “Sure thing, honey.” She abandoned the door and went to retrieve her phone.

  I studied her room with some curiosity. It was bigger than mine, with a light pink carpet and white walls with pastel green accents. Her bed was covered with a bunny-patterned quilt, and she owned about twice the amount of furniture that I did. I eyed her elegant light wood dresser with blatant envy.

  “Here,” she said, holding out her phone.

  A little confused, I took it from her and brought it to my ear. “Yes?”

  “You need my help, angeling?” Aszu’s voice was even deeper and smoother through the phone than in person. It was a good thing I had a built-in wariness to everything realms-related.

  “I do. I need information about—”

  “Ana, Ana, Ana,” he drawled. “I do not talk business over the phone, I only arrange meetings.”

  “Oh. I’ll be at the Market tonight.”

  “Tsk, tsk. Not with so many prying ears, my lovely. What about that quaint coffee shop you work at?”

  What did he mean? I wasn’t a waitress. Had tried it, hadn’t worked out so well. “I’m not…” Then it hit me—he meant Helen’s café, a source of endless demon vermin hunting jobs. “Sure. When?”

  “Will six o’clock do?”

  “I can do that.”

  “It’s a date.”

  He hung up before I could argue that.

  “Don’t mind him,” Tara said, accurately reading my expression. “He likes to be melodramatic.”

  I’ll say.

  I thanked her and dragged myself one more flight of stairs up to my floor. Food. Rest. Maybe shower. Worry about the world later.

  I opened the door to my room and froze.

  It was completely trashed. The contents of my desk’s drawers and the shelf were strewn across the carpet, the sheets and blanket of my bed tossed around, the mattress tilted against the wall.

  Alaciel stood by my window.

  And Alan Ward sat on my desk chair.

  EIGHT

  Clearly, I needed to move rooms.

  I swallowed hard, my body tightening in anticipation, remembering the last time I’d been this close to Alaciel. I stepped back, ready to bolt. But Tara was in the building. And Davis. And who knew who else. I didn’t want them to be collateral damage if Alaciel went after me.

  Crossing the threshold, I closed the door behind me.

  “What do you want?” I asked in a low voice. Carefully, I reached for the power within me, readying it on the edge of bursting through—I might need to take on my full form in the blink of an eye.

  Alan Ward regarded me for a few moments. He had the body of a young man, perhaps in his late twenties. His features had the clean beauty of youth to them, and along with the wavy brown hair, he might have stepped out of some Renaissance painting.

  As if to enhance the effect, he wore a loose cotton shirt and honest-to-God breeches.

  “Where is the half of the heart?”

  That explained the state of my room.

  My hands flexed on their own, some of the Red Angel seeping through and burning my fingertips. I could deny any knowledge about the Vow, but Ward hadn’t lasted this long because he was stupid.

  “You might as well tell me,” he drawled in a pleasant tone that clashed with the bizarreness of the situation. “I’ll even barter for the information, for the sake of alacrity.”

  “Or?” I heard myself say.

  He waved vaguely at Alaciel, immobile like a statue by the window. “Or I’ll torture it out of you.”

  The most terrifying part about it was that he wasn’t bluffing. He would totally do it, and watch with indifference as Alaciel ripped me apart in his search for the Vow of Conquest. As Cooper liked to say, mortal minds hadn’t been made to withstand immortality. They got warped along the way.

  So, might as well use the opportunity and swing for the fences.

  “Kill Cabot and free Iriel without any harm coming to her, and I’ll tell you where it is.”

  “No. He is needed.” He tilted his head toward Alaciel. “I guess torture it is.”

  Alaciel took a step forward.

  I raised my hands as if to stop him, even though there was no stopping him. “Wait.”

  Ward leaned his elbows on his knees and linked his fingers. “Yes?”

  “The Hunters have the heart.”

  “Then you better retrieve it.”

  I kept a wary eye on Alaciel. “Or what?” The one thing I knew about Ward, aside from his search for the Book of Secrets, was that he valued his low profile. He’d value it even more if he had some secret scheme going on to take over the world, or whatever it was he needed these things for. “If you kill me or maim me too badly, it’ll call attention to you and whatever it is you’re doing. I might be on the Hunters’ shitlist, but everyone knows me. They’ll want to know what happened to me and why. My friends will make sure of it, and if it leads back to you…”